Amid Rain of Shells, Aleppo’s Civilians Offer ‘Final Scream’

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Syrian government forces had reclaimed most of rebel-held eastern Aleppo by Tuesday, in a fierce battle. Activists and civilians in the last opposition-controlled areas posted videos describing their fear.CreditCreditGeorge Ourfalian/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Families, medical workers, insurgent fighters and wounded people were packed and ready Wednesday morning to vacate the ravaged rebel-held neighborhoods of the Syrian city of Aleppo under a deal between Russia and Turkey. Then the resumed booms of incoming artillery shells from pro-government forces sent them into hiding or running for their lives.

It was the latest life-or-death whiplash for the thousands trapped in the ruins of a once-vibrant northern metropolis, which has come to symbolize the atrocities unfolding in the nearly six-year-old war.

Under the supposed deal for a cease-fire and evacuation — announced on Tuesday by Turkey, Russia and Syrian rebels — the remaining fighters were to leave Aleppo for rebel-held territory farther north and civilians were free to join them or move to government-held areas.

That outcome would leave the whole city in the hands of forces loyal to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, denounced the resumed shelling, calling it a probable war crime.

“The way this deal was dangled in front of this battered and beleaguered population — causing them to hope they might indeed live to see another day — and then snatched away just half a day later is also outrageously cruel,” Mr. al-Hussein said in a statement.

“The Syrian government has a clear responsibility to ensure its people are safe, and is palpably failing to take this opportunity to do so,” he said.

As each side blamed the other for the deal’s collapse, civilians inside the city issued anguished, angry pleas for international pressure to reinstate it. The Assad government and Iran, Syria’s other main ally besides Russia, appeared not to have been fully consulted on the deal, according to international officials and others briefed on the talks, and were insisting on new conditions.

Rebel groups outside the city resumed shelling government-held districts in Aleppo. Civilians in other rebel-held areas to the north protested against their leaders and ransacked posts of hard-line rebel groups, demanding they help those in Aleppo.

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Shelling resumed Wednesday in rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo, Syria, halting a planned the evacuation of thousands of civilians. A ceasefire reached the night before, involving Russia and Turkey, seemed to have fallen through.CreditCreditOmar Sanadiki/Reuters

Close to midnight Wednesday, rebel groups announced a new deal for another evacuation attempt on Thursday. Trapped civilians expressed disbelief, and the Syrian military denied that another deal had been reached.

But by early Thursday the shelling had tapered off, residents reported, hoping the pause would hold.

As the shelling escalated Wednesday morning, a radiology nurse in Aleppo, Mohamed al-Ahmad, said he hoped the world would hear “our final scream,” adding that the wounded, with rescue and medical services in disarray, were bleeding to death in the streets.

Yasser, an accountant volunteering in a makeshift medical clinic, posted a photograph via WhatsApp of an injured girl lying on a hallway floor. She was 10, he said, with broken bones, and was crying and shouting: “Get me out of Aleppo. I am afraid, I am cold. My back is hurting me. Where is the doctor?”

Yasser, who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of being arrested for contacting journalists, said in frustration, “Let us leave — what is happening?”

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The civilians of opposition-held eastern Aleppo are fleeing by the thousands after days of near constant bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces. Their flight to areas of humanitarian aid is a risky one.

Problems with the deal had been evident from the start. Soon after it was announced Tuesday night, Syrian officials said they had no knowledge of it, and there was no word from Iran.

Then, around 1 a.m. Wednesday, a convoy of vans carrying dozens of wounded people, including fighters and their families, began making its way out of Aleppo.

But the vans returned soon after, witnesses said, after Iranian-backed militiamen blocked the way and said they did not have Syrian government permission.

The militiamen said they would not allow anyone out until rebel groups had ended their siege of Fouaa and Kfarya, two encircled Shiite enclaves in Idlib Province. Residents said they were told they could leave at 6 a.m., but as buses idled, the shelling resumed.

Opposition leaders and civilians inside Aleppo said they believed that Iran had balked at a deal brokered by Russia. Osama Abu Zayd, a legal adviser to Syrian opposition factions, told The Associated Press that Iran’s field commander in Syria was resisting it.

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Residents of Aleppo, Syria, told us how they feel when they hear an aircraft overhead. Eastern Aleppo has been under heavy bombardment by Syrian and Russian forces.

The interests of Mr. Assad’s two main backers, Russia and Iran, do not always dovetail. Iran has a stake in retaining the influence it gained by entering the conflict on behalf of Mr. Assad two years before Russia.

Iran has trained, backed and financed the pro-government militias that have bolstered Syrian ground forces, with recruits from Iraq, Afghanistan and other countries, as well as Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite militant group.

Yasser, the accountant, said civilians in Aleppo did not approve of rebel shelling of civilians in Fouaa and Kfarya. “We are humans,” he said. “They are not our enemies. They are civilians like us.”

The Russian Defense Ministry blamed the rebels for the impasse, saying on Wednesday that they had “resumed the hostilities” at dawn, trying to break through Syrian government positions to the northwest. Residents questioned why rebels inside eastern Aleppo would start shooting again when they were about to escape.

Later, negotiators said the Syrian government was asking for the release of prisoners and the bodies of dead soldiers, and for rebels to hand over fighters from the Qaeda-linked Levant Conquest Front.

Government opponents also said they suspected Mr. Assad of stalling. His government has often skillfully played its backers against one another. The wrangling could provide cover to finish off Aleppo’s last rebel enclave with force. As one Syrian military officer told Reuters in Aleppo recently, rebels must “surrender or die.”

Troubles carrying out the accord were not surprising, as there was no international monitoring — United Nations officials said the Syrian government had refused their repeated pleas to observe — and no enforcement provision. The same problems have vexed other deals reached during the conflict.

Malek, an activist who said he hoped to join his pregnant wife in northern Aleppo Province, and who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear of retaliation, said the world saw civilians in rebel-held territory as “no longer human.”

“They think we are Daesh,” he said via WhatsApp, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State, the militant group that has established a so-called caliphate in parts of Syria but not in Aleppo.

Using a mournful expression, he added, “we didn’t taste the flavor of life.”

At the United Nations on Tuesday, Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said there had been “credible reports” of atrocities, including extrajudicial killings, as eastern Aleppo was retaken.

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The United States ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, directed her remarks at officials of Syria, Iran and Russia on Tuesday referring to the fighting and humanitarian crisis in the Syrian city.CreditCreditAmanda Voisard/The United Nations, via Associated Press

Russia categorically denied the reports, and Mr. Ban said the world body had been unable to verify them.

Dr. Salem Abou Al-Nasr, a dentist who had kept his clinic open until last week but finally moved to one of the last rebel neighborhoods when his was taken by government forces, said Wednesday morning that he could hear heavy shelling.

“We slept a quiet night, but sadly the shelling is back,” he said.

Later, Dr. Abou Al-Nasr posted a video on Facebook calling for global powers to intervene to push through a deal.

“The situation can’t wait,” he said. “Everyone should know, we, the people here, we love life and want to live.”

The evacuation plan came after two weeks of rapid advances by the Syrian Army and its allies, who drove insurgents into an ever-smaller pocket of eastern Aleppo, with support from heavy airstrikes and artillery fire.

Rebel groups have received support from Turkey, the United States and Persian Gulf states, but far less than the direct military aid that Iran and Russia have provided to Mr. Assad.

Reporting was contributed by Ivan Nechepurenko from Moscow, Somini Sengupta from the United Nations, and Karam Shoumali from Istanbul.

A version of this article appears in print on , on Page A12 of the New York edition with the headline: Amid Rain of Shells, a ‘Final Scream’ From Aleppo’s Civilians. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe